Alive
by xoiid
Summary: Post war Shakarian.
1. Alive

It had been 3 weeks since she was released from the hospital.

He had taken her to a small apartment looking over the Vancouver Port. Two room. Nothing fancy. He knew she didn't do fancy. She wasn't well enough to be on the ship. She was grounded until she was seen fit by her physician. She had the best. Every 3 days the physician would some in to check her over. Her injuries were still bad and she still wasn't sleeping well. Three or four nights without any decent sleep, then crashing for only a few hours one night out of four, most of the time tossing and turning waking up in a cold sweat screaming in pain and agony. Most of the time he found himself awake watching her every moment he could. Like the night he spent at the hospital recall the moment they found her in the rubble, far from where she should have been, when all hope was lost for her. She was in a coma for a month. For the first 2 weeks people would come in to see her. Everyday a new punch of flowers was waiting for her. He could only visit her when he could. In the end he stayed with her every day until she woke. He talked to her every day, telling her about his new work, who had pissed him off and how he couldn't wait to for her to wake up. All he ever wanted was for her to wake up.

The nights he stayed with her, he would try not to fall asleep. When he did, he found himself recalling the moment after she was attacked. Her lifeless body found barely breathing in the rubble of London.

The Camps were spread thin. Survivors, solders, medic's, they all occupied these small camps that laced London. Quarians, Turains, Asari, Batarian, Krogan and even Salarian mixed in well with the Humans. Drexo food supplies were short, but nothing that couldn't be helped. Supplies were being brought in from the last pockets of the Quarian fleet. Supplies from Turian ships were scarce. Most food was rationed, it was their only way. Whatever hatred had been was forgotten thanks to the war. But thanks shouldn't be given. Not today, he thought. He sat with most of the Normandy's old and new crew. The fires ragged, the crew would share their stories, trying to find their own way to deal with the grief of their commanding officers disappearance. No one came out unscathed. The Normandy was parked in a clearing and it crew resided on the ground to help with recovery efforts. Support groups were sent to find the last of the Cerberus resistants. Everyone else was helping their own planet, Earth or the Citadel, which was parked above Earth. The wounded didn't have much of a chance, but medic's never stopped.

"Do you remember that time Shepard took down that Thresher Maw while trying to find T'Soni?"

"And the one on Tuchunka?"

A small ban of misfits where stranded talking of old times. A man called Miles was in pain, had been for a while, bad shoulder, wrecked knee. But his team needed the omni-gel more than he did.  
Miles was irritated and wanted to wonder. He wondered off. No one noticed.

He found a part of want seemed like an old shop.

On the other side, he heard part of a wall fall, startling him. Instinct kicked in, he raised his pistol. There was more rustling. He hobbled over to investigate. Survivors were hard to come by, but still being found. A chance that someone would still be alive was better than nothing. He clambered over the rubble seeing blood 'seeping' from the rubble. A dirt cover human laid in the wreckage, female, armour burned off, it was hard to tell.  
"Help has arrive." He said, assuring the person. The more he moved the rubble, he began notice. There was a N7 badge on her chest plate, her hand moving. Then the silver of her dog tags shone in his eyes.

"Easy there, stay with me…"  
He flipped over the dog tags.

SHEPARD

It was Shepard.


	2. Dreaming

When they escaped. with out her, there was protest.

"We have to go and find her!"

"Just because you couldn't bring yourself to put the name up, doesnt mean she is alive."

"Spirits! Ash you have no idea what the hell your talking about!"

Ashley ignored him and left the cockpit.

Joker was there, flying. Alone. Edi was damaged. Tali ensured him that she could get her back. But Joker knew. Joker looked to Garrus. "Are you sure?"

Garrus nodded.

Joker already lost enough people in his life. His family, sister, girlfriend, crew, if there was any chance that Shepard was alive.

Tali and the engineering crew managed to get the Normandy running after the crash they managed to get into the mapped territory. Alliance, Merc chatter was all over the com, even Geth chatter. Shepard's name was running hot, they found her.

Shepard saw a white haze, it slowly engulfed her. It was the haze before her dreams.

"Control, Synthesis, Destroy"

The words were whispered repeatedly in her head, over and over again.  
The haze lifted, rainbow coloured glasses were lined in front of her.

"Shepard"

Mordin, smiling. Thane was there too.  
A hand touched her shoulder.

"Commander."

"Kadian, I'm so—"

"30 minutes are up Shepard." Mordin chirped.

It went dark.

"… so sorry, I failed you all." She voice whispered as all seemed to disappear in the darkness.

"Shepard?"

That voice.

"She's waking up."

It wasn't her.

The darkness lifted to white, spotted with black and grey blurs, some of which moved.  
She felt herself reaching to grab one.

"Shepard, I need you to relax."

Her hand was forced down. Something felt so familiar about this.

"Increase the sedatives"

LAZURUS PROJECT

Miranda

Shepard pushed up with all her strength, fighting the sedatives.

She was back, before the collectors.

She grabbed Miranda by the Scruff of the neck. Something she couldn't do last time.

"What… the … fuck…"

"Commander!"

She was forced down by two large blurs.  
She wasn't going to fight for Cerberus again. Not the Collectors.

Run.  
Run away.

The sedatives kicked back in

"Your numbers were off."  
"No. You just can't keep a good solider down. " Miranda looked down at Shepard. "It'll be over soon."

"F…"

Shepard started to wake up, her head pounding, spinning. Muffled voices carried through her head like a dreadnought crashing into a planet. She felt cold, her hands and legs felt like the weighed a ton, She felt slimy, like she had been spat on by Rachni. She felt like she had been brought back from the dead.

Miranda.

She shot out of bed. Dizzy as anything but she tried her best to get out of the room. Her legs were weak, she grabbed onto the windowsill.

"Shepard!"

A familiar voice called out from the door.

"G… Garru…s?"

She fell to the ground.

Miranda rushed over. Picking her up, and putting her back onto the bed.

"This, this isn't Lazarus."

"No Shepard."

"I remember running into battle. Reaper shot me. Anderson and I were talking to the Illusive Man… then that damn kid told me to choose-"

Everything went dark again.

"I promise I will be here the moment you wake up. I was by your side start and I will be there in the end."


	3. Reborn

Shepard had been found by the Alliance, in the ruins of London. The Normandy was en route to the rendezvous point. With the explosion of some of the mass relays, the Normandy crash landed on a garden planet. When the finally got back to Earth, com chatter was through the roof with Shepard surviving.

He managed to get to the ruins of a hospital where she was being kept. Miranda was called in to help rebuild Shepard. Automatically Garrus dreaded the thought of Shepard on the operating table for two years, or more. Miranda assured that Shepard wouldn't be on that long. Miranda only had her on the table for a week. Her cybernetics had kept a lot of her body intact and it was a matter of repairing broken bones and some facial reconstruction.

Once she was off the table. Garrus spent every moment with Shepard. Her condition was irregular. He was being shuffled out more times than he cared to remember. But he kept his word. Not leaving the hospital until he knew Shepard was alright. But that wasn't going to be the case.

He was called to help the rebuilding of his people. The Turian Hierarchy had asked for his help personally. Thanks to the damaged relays, he had to do it from Earth. Which was fine., every time he was with the primarch, he manage to stay a few hours with Shepard.

36 days since the operation. Everyone managed to see when they could. Tali came to see Shepard and Garrus.

"How is she doing?" Tali asked.

"Better. She is back to being stable."

There was silence between the two.

"I heard that her condition only improves when we there is people talking around. Apparently its like she 'wants to wake up'"

Tali grabbed Garrus hand.

"But right now, I heard you eat or slept for days. The Nurses were considering putting you on a drip."

Garrus ignored her remark. Tali grabbed his hand.

"Please Garrus. Come and eat with me."

He need to leave. But there was someone else had other ideas. A small twitch from Shepard's hand. "Shepard?"  
There was rapid eye movement. Her heart began to beat a bit faster.

"Did she just respond to you?" Asked Tali.

Garrus shrugged.

"Shepard? Can you hear us?" Tali asked.

Another twitch. Garrus held her hand tight. "Shepard. Please, wake up."

"Garrus…" Shepard whispered in a harsh voice. "Garrus?!"

Both Garrus and Tali ran towards Shepard, she was gasping for air, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Shepard!"

She stood still, her whole body ached like she'd been hung for days, then the pain. The utter pain.  
"ARGH!" She fell back to her bed.


	4. Learning

Garrus had been called. "Sorry, the boss is calling me."

"Wait what? Where are you going? Boss?" She winced at the pain caused by the bruises on her face.

"I help the turian hierarchy now."

"What, with the primarch?"

"You could say that…"

Shepard watched him as he exited the room. "When will you be back?"

"Very soon. It's only a quick call."

Shepard sat there, quietly eating her food.

Garrus went down the hall. As Shepard ate, a visitor dropped by.

"Hey your up!" A voice chimed at her.

"And so is the roof."

Liara and Tali came in. Visitors hadn't been allowed, but exceptions can be made.

Last time Tali had seen Shepard, she had just slipped back into a coma. She had been using her skills to find intact geth, helping to repair them. The Dark Matter had taken out some in space, but mostly fried the ones in range who had the reaper codes in them. Pockets had been found, 'alive' and regrouping. In her spare time, she was trying her best to repair EDI as best she could. She was able to 'reboot' her from her Luna VI, however it would take to get her back to fully functional AI. It seemed that all her memories where intact, mostly. Some had been damaged, mostly Cerberus, which Tali found extremely interesting. Had EDI predicted this and taking precautions, saved her more important memories allocating the lesser, more undesirable ones to perish? Liara had been working with the humans mostly to help co-ordinate supplies.

"I see you are feeling better." Liara commented.

"Yeah, besides the horrific pain, lack of painkillers, which i am okay with, and a missing leg. I'm just really hungry."

"A missing leg?!" Tali and Liara chimed in horror.

"Yeah." Shepard chipped. "I haven't got a new one yet because they… well I dont know why to be honest."

"They should have told me." Tali whispered to Liara. "I could have made her one, or someone in the hole could have! I mean really, it's not hard to make it out of scraps!"

"For non-quarians it is." Liara pointed out.

"So what have you guys been up to?" Shepard asked.

Garrus walked back into the room. The girls greeted him, "Hello Primarch." in a sweet colourful pitch.

"What?" Shepard was shocked. "You? The Primarch?"

Garrus nodded. Shepard was unsure how to react. She knew Garrus could do it. He could do anything. But what did it mean for them? He was her rock for so long. She never even admitted she was crushing on him hard back on the original Normandy, but back then she wasn't sure how she felt about anyone.  
But she needed the know about the future.

"Ahh ladies, could you give me two minutes with Garrus please?" She asked. Tali and Liara both looked to each other, then walked out.

"We will be back in 10." Tali said. "I need to… 'see a man about a dog'. Is that how I say it?"

"Yes Tali." Shepard's attention was back on Garrus. He wasn't looking her in the eye, more concentrating on the machines she was hooked up on. "Congrats on being Primarch."

"Thank you."

There was an unsettling silence between them for a while. "So… What happens between us?" She asked bluntly. "Because I really just want to be a 'one kind of turian' woman."

Garrus laughed. He gently grabbed her hands. "We are still on."

She let out a huge sigh, "Thank goodness Garrus." She latched onto him with open arms. "I love you so much Garrus."

"I love you too."

"Thou I need to ask something." Garrus was puzzled and worried.

"Like what?"

"You know how you mention adopting Krogan babies?"

"Well I mention Turian/Human babies until you dismissed that claim, but yes I do remember."

"Did you mean it?"

"Yes. But not until you are better."

"And I get a new leg." She smiled.

"Oh yeah. Hope you're not going to be hobbling around like an old woman when we have kids." Garrus laughed.

"I plan too. I saved the Galaxy, you can look after the damn kids."

"Oh really?"


	5. Future

"Keep it simple. You don't need to go too fast." Garrus insisted she slow down on her intake on food.

"But I'm hungry." She said in-between mouthfuls of food.

This was the first time since she recognized him that she had been awake when he was there.  
When she awoke, she seemed like she had woken up from a nightmare.

"Where am I? What— what happen?" Shepard had sprung up like lightning from her bed, only to come crashing down as a massive migraine came alone and threw her down to earth.

"Easy Shepard." Garrus Tried to reassure her.

"You've been out for a good 3 months." Tali pointed out.

"3 months. Well, at least it wasn't Miranda and her 2 years of death." Shepard coughed hard in-between trying to laugh at her own joke. It was something of a relief knowing that Shepard was still herself.

"Well Miranda did have a part of it."

"WHAT?! I thought I killed—"

"She was working with us." Tali informed.

"Oh yeah…" Shepard nodded her head, memories flowing back. The memories were flowing back. "Did we win?" She asked quietly. Looking around. A seeming empty room. A shattered half window up near the roof. She couldn't see what it was like outside. Only that it was bright. Which was a nice surprise.

There was silence. Silence in a way that said, yes you idiot, while you were sleeping we won the war. Garrus nodded.

"Awesome." She smiled. Garrus held her hand tight and kissed her forhead. The nurses and medic came running. Shepard's heart beat began to fluncuate rapidly. She slipped back into the darkness.

Now 3 days later she was eating solids. Well cereal at least. "I really want a piece of chicken." She stated. "Oh yeah…" She looked up to him. " I need to show you want a chicken is! They kinda look like you if you decided to grow feathers."

"So they are 2 meters tall, can talk, shoot a sniper rifle and take a missile to the face?"

"I wish! That would be awesome! But no, now that you mention it, not really no."

It was some godily hour at night. Garrus let out a large yawn.

"You tired handsome?" Shepard asked.

"No, I'm fine."

"This isn't the main gun on the Normandy y'know. You can go to sleep." Shepard insisted.

"No," She looked at him. She was almost ready to use the 'Commanding Officer Card'. "I made a promise. I promised you I would be there the moment you woke up."

"I'm awake now."

"I was by your side start and I will be there in the end." He finished. "And I mean it. " Shepard blushed underneath the bruises and open cybernetics, though it was hard to tell. He brushed her hair from her eyes, gently so it was not to hurt her. "Besides, the doctors say it will be at least 4 months before you can get out of here."

"I can do it in 2."


End file.
